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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27033730">Permutation</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoShimmer/pseuds/EchoShimmer'>EchoShimmer</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Wumptober 2020 [11]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A Surprising Amount of Fluff All Things Considered, Alternate Universe - Alien Invasion, Biological Weapons, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd is Robin, Kid Tim Drake, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Pack Bonding, Scents, Tails, Weird Transformation Plague Thing, Whumptober 2020, Wings, science gone wrong</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 17:53:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,191</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27033730</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoShimmer/pseuds/EchoShimmer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A weird, most likely alien attack overtakes Gotham. Robin!Jason finds himself caught up in the blast, and he wakes up changed. </p>
<p>It turns out, for better or worse, that he's not the only one affected.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tim Drake &amp; Jason Todd</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Wumptober 2020 [11]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948924</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>286</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Permutation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written at the request of the lovely <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyuuzaKochou/pseuds/Moxibustion">Moxibustion</a>. It was loosely inspired by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/series/74506">Project Tatterdemalion</a> by Vathara, but I've veered quite a bit from the original concept. (I have not read the series, and it's not one of my normal fandoms, but I'm told the worldbuilding is great and stands alone so if you're interested-)</p>
<p>This is also, admittedly, very loosely edited because it ended way longer than expected. Either way, I hope you enjoy :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Sometimes Jason really had to sit back and wonder what it was about Gotham that attracted so much craziness. For some reason, the city always seemed to be a gathering place for the most mentally unstable or otherwise twisted people, for the most corrupt officials and conniving mob bosses. You would think that they would try to go somewhere else with less competition but no, they all had to duke it out for power here. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe it was the gothic architecture and gloomy, dramatic weather that doomed Gotham to it’s fate, attracting everyone with darker intentions like flies to a lamp. Maybe it was the wealth discrepancy that left a lot of people willing to work for whoever and do whatever it took to get food on the table. Maybe it was just something in the water. Either way, Gothamites had to get really used to the status quo very quickly if they were going to survive here. It was always easy to spot the unprepared tourists among the crowd when the latest Rogue attack went down. While tourists panic, Gotham natives just respond to the situation, pulling out gas masks and heading for the already located nearest safe zone. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jason had noticed that the level of adaptability was less obvious among the upper crust of Gotham, the ones who spent half of their lives vacationing on the other side of the world and were convinced money could protect them the rest of the time. They existed in a world somewhere between Gotham and the outside. Even so, </span>
  <em>
    <span>they </span>
  </em>
  <span>were still more prepared to react to the random shit that Gotham liked to throw out then the average person.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When you deal with mob wars and insane criminal attacks every other week, it comes to a point that the craziness becomes the norm, expected and almost comforting in it’s chaos. It was like some sort of twisted Stockholm Syndrome but for a city. Stay there long enough, and the crazy just binds itself into your bones, and all the sudden Gotham is your home. Living in any other city would be tame in comparison.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then there was today, when something crazy enough happened that it could easily throw everything else from before clear out of the water.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It started with a series of weird radio signals that had the Batcomputer sounding suspicious alarms in the early evening. Even the Watchtower’s sensors were picking up some weird activity in the vicinity of Gotham. The Justice League had been prepared to investigate themselves, but they had quickly agreed, at Batman’s request, to stay on standby until more information was retrieved. Instead, as soon as the sun was solidly below the horizon that night Batman and Robin hit the streets, throwing out all their previous plans for a normal patrol in exchange for a wild goose chase for the source of the mystery signal.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It had taken a couple hours of combing the city. The signal was very inconsistent, sometimes blasting its presence and other times almost disappearing from the scanners altogether. Occasionally there was a faint blip in an entirely different direction, quickly buried under the main readings. Batman had almost given in and let Robin split off on his own for want of a broader search area when they had finally found the source, sitting conspicuously in the middle of a warehouse near the docks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Batman had taken all of three seconds of looking at the strange material, some sort of weird pink, semi translucent material that seemed to almost have veins in it with an inner, throbbing golden glow that ebbed and flowed with the signal it was sending out, before he came to a couple of deductions about the situation.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Whatever this object was, it was almost certainly alien in origin. At first glance Batman had no clue what it was meant to do, but chances are it wasn’t a good thing. He was right to keep the Justice League out of the city, since there was no way to know which of the non-humans in the group would react badly to this object's presence. At the moment, he didn’t even know for sure if </span>
  <em>
    <span>humans</span>
  </em>
  <span> would react badly at close range.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Which, in total, led to Batman making a few calls, pulling out just about every single analysis tool in his belt, and curtly ordering Robin to head back to the Cave and wait for further instructions where he would be “safe” and “out of the way”.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Pausing in his trip back across Gotham, Jason huffed out an annoyed breath towards the empty rooftop. Here he was, almost sixteen years old and with nearly three years of vigilante experience under his belt, and at the first sign of something abnormal B’s first move was to send him home like an inexperienced child. He had even blocked Jason out of the Comm channel he was using to communicate with the League. Did Bruce really think so little of his skills to deem him incapable?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(A small part of Jason’s mind tried to present the logical reasoning that B was probably just being the slightly emotionally stunted dad that he was and trying to keep Jason safe and out of danger. The bitter side of Jason shoved logical Jason back into the corner he had come from. Let him have a few minutes of brooding, damnit!)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jason was pulled abruptly from his thoughts by a near-silent clatter, suspiciously similar to the sound a person made when shifting weight while standing on one of Gotham’s classic debris covered rooftops. Jason snapped around to face the sound, suspiciously scanning the neighboring building. Nothing. He stood stalk still, listening carefully for anything that could indicate the presence of another person. This wasn’t a residential area, no one hanging around these parts at this time of night could be up to anything good.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No more shifting of gravel, no muffled breathing. Between that and the clearly empty surrounding roofs, Jason was thoroughly convinced that he was jumping at nothing. The sound was probably just due the light breeze currently blowing throughout Gotham. Jason let himself relax out of the automatic ready position he had fallen into. Damn, B’s paranoia was rubbing off on him already.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But then- Jason frowned. There was nothing that indicated a person was nearby, but there, just at the edges of his senses was the faintest, inconsistent hum. Almost electrical but not. He moved ever so slightly towards the edge of the roof, and against the wall of the neighboring building there was just the faintest hint of unnatural light coming from the alleyway. Well, it couldn’t be a streetlight, not in that location. Jason pulled a Batarang silently, creeping silently forward to get a proper look at the source of the anomaly from above.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He blinked, taking a moment to process. Requiring a closer look to confirm, Jason replaced the Batarang with a grapnel gun and carefully used it to lower himself down to the pavement in front of the dumpster. Sure enough, the eerie light peeking out from under one of the overly full trash bags was coming from yet another one of those weird alien devices. This one seemed slightly smaller than the first they had found, but it was hard to tell for sure with how buried it was. Jason wasn’t stupid enough to just start moving things around to get a better look, though.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Batman would probably want him to call this in, right? Sure, B might get a bit annoyed that Jason had let himself get distracted when he was supposed to be “heading straight home, Robin”, but finding another one of these things scattered around in the middle of nowhere was undoubtedly the bigger concern here. Jason backed away a bit, lifting a hand to turn on the Comm and report in.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But before he could get more than halfway there, a distant explosion rocked through the quiet night.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Or, it was probably more accurate to say a series of explosions. As soon as the initial blast from somewhere behind Jason (from the general area of the docks, where B probably still was-) started to register, a twin explosion sounded from somewhere in the opposite direction. Jason could feel the rumbling of the blasts under his feet even from this far away. Moments later, a third explosion from Jason’s right. This one originated from a direction unobscured by buildings, he could actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>see</span>
  </em>
  <span> the pink-white cloud that was thrown up into the air by the blast.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Explosions. A pink tinted cloud. One from the direction of the docks, where Batman had been analyzing the- wait-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The device that had been humming so innocently next to Jason suddenly ratcheted up in frequency and volume, and Jason’s eyes widened in panic. He barely had the time to choke out a half-formed curse before the light flashed impossibly bright and the thing exploded outward.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jason barely had time to process the concussive blast before his vision flooded with color and he blacked out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jason floated peacefully, with no concept of time passing. He was peripherally aware of his body, of a feeling of being surrounded by warmth and wet and color, but it was like everything was separated by a fluffy layer of unreality. There was no panic, there was no thought. There was just silence and warmth and peace. Until there wasn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It started as a tickling at the back of Jason’s mind, slowly growing in severity until the instinctual urge was enough to entirely overpower the haze of floatiness that he had been existing in. His eyes opened, but didn’t really process anything beyond the brightening of the light from somewhere nearby. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Get out</span>
  </em>
  <span> some strange part of his mind seemed to say without words. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Claw push break freedom. Time running out. Hurry hurry.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was no time to process about the how or why of what was happening. The logical part of Jason’s mind that would normally ask those types of questions was slower to wake and immediately overwhelmed by the instinctual urge to </span>
  <em>
    <span>escape</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jason started thrashing, now made aware of the hard surface that surrounded him, enclosing him into confines that left him little room to maneuver. Limbs struck out against the walls, and with a few solid hits the pink-red faceted surface was cracking under his blows. He focused in at the largest crack in front of his face, clawing at the growing gap with desperation as whatever weird instinct had taken hold urged him forward.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The barrier shattered all at once under his barrage, breaking into multiple small pieces as Jason fell forward until his chest and face hit the cement. He went limp there, heaving in deep breaths as the panicked instinct faded as quickly as it came, the adrenaline rush abandoning him and leaving a bone-deep exhaustion in its place. Worn out as he was, Jason didn’t even care to fret over how many disgusting things had probably touched the cement where his face was currently pressed. Jason just laid there, catching his breath as his brain finally started to come back online, slowly able to process the overwhelming rush of data his body was currently sending him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The first thing to fully register was the deep ache in his muscles. Jason was very much not looking forward to when he eventually tried to move, even though he knew it would soon be inevitable. The second detail came in the form of a slightly sharper pain on each of his fingertips, less familiar and harder to place than the muscle strain. He put that down as probable injury from his harried escape and moved on.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was light shining through his half-closed eyelids, obnoxiously bright considering he last remembered being in Gotham (and with the familiar stench of the cement he was on, there was no doubt that this was, in fact, Gotham). Light meant that it was daytime, even if he last remembered it being the middle of the night. Some time had passed, then. His vision was having trouble focusing when he tried to look, eyes struggling to adjust to the light, but the blurry images he did get told him he was in some sort of alley in the middle of the city. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The rigidity and general shape of the clothing Jason wore screamed Robin uniform, but the gaps and breaks in that indicated that it was heavily damaged. No way to be sure how badly until he was able to take a proper look at it. The chestplate in particular seemed heavily damaged based on the way his back seemed to be touching open air. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Speaking of that, there seemed to be a heavy weight across Jason’s upper back and shoulders, not immovable but enough to be noticeable. Something lighter was flopped over one of his calves, mostly noticeable because of his inability to place the source. It was these two strange details above that finally snapped Jason fully into consciousness, prompting him to sit up fully.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And that’s when things got </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> weird, because when Jason reluctantly pulled his arms under him and went to push himself into a sitting position, the strange weight over his back moved with him rather than sliding off of him. Muscles in Jason’s back and at the base of his spine that Jason didn’t remember even </span>
  <em>
    <span>having</span>
  </em>
  <span> stretched and bunched under his skin, the armored layer of the Robin chestplate completely fell away to the cement as he rose, with the shredded underlayer not in much better shape. But the fact that Jason was basically shirtless in the middle of Gotham suddenly seemed like a tiny detail in the face of everything else that was suddenly crowding Jason’s mind for attention once he </span>
  <em>
    <span>finally</span>
  </em>
  <span> got a read on the situation and-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That was- there were </span>
  <em>
    <span>wings</span>
  </em>
  <span>, like honest to god, scaled dragon-like wings coming out of Jason’s back. They were a fairly bright red- Jason would consider them a crimson- and huge, unable to fold in properly with how he was sitting on the ground. They seemed to move to some degree on their own, shifting slightly as Jason’s balance changed, rising and falling with his breathing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hesitant fingers moved to touch them, Jason’s mind needing more confirmation that this was real. The scaled membrane was thin, and warm under his touch, the joint where the scales faded into skin on his back was solid and well muscled. Hardly daring to breathe, Jason tensed the strange muscles in his back as he imagined he would have to and sure enough, the wing his eyes were currently locked on flared out in response. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They were actually attached to him. Holy shit.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Once that had been processed some (and damn was it a lot to process) Jason was able to tear his gaze away from the wings and take in some of the other changes, because oh no, wings weren’t enough on their own. Remembering the other group of unexpected muscles he’d noticed, Jason’s gaze slid down some and huh, what do you know, why not. He had a tail too. The base, from what he could see as he awkwardly twisted around to look, connected around the end of his spine and was about the diameter of his palm. It was long, around the length of his legs, and tapered to a point with multiple triangle-shaped spikes at the end. It curled around him lightly, twitching slightly even without his conscious adjustment similarly to the wings’ small movements. The scales were the same rough shape and color on this new appendage, too. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Reaching out to inspect exactly how sharp those tail-spikes were was what brought the final two changes to Jason’s awareness. There were additional patches of crimson scattered in seemingly randomly placed clumps on Jason’s skin, the scales apparently spreading beyond the new limbs. Now that he was staring at the spots on his arm, he was aware of the dull itch in those areas, as well as the same itch scattered over spots on the rest of his body. His left hand came up to press on one of the spots on his right arm somewhat distantly, and that was what led to the final discovery. The pain on his fingertips apparently wasn’t just from breaking free from the case (shell? chrysalis?) earlier, because each of his fingers was now sporting small (but again, very sharp looking) claws. Tensing and untensing minute muscles in his fingertips revealed that the claws were retractable like a housecat’s.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was just- everything was just- there were too many things to process. Too many things had changed in the period of time Jason had been unconscious while trapped in the cage/shell/chrysalis, however long that was. For whatever reason, it was watching the claws in his fingertips slide in and out at will that finally made Jason snap into the reality of it all. This had actually happened. The pervasive sense of </span>
  <em>
    <span>wrongness</span>
  </em>
  <span> of his body flooded through him, stealing the breath from his lungs and setting him trembling.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jason gave himself that minute to panic. Then another. After around three minutes he had to clamp his eyes closed and force himself to </span>
  <em>
    <span>breathe</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He couldn’t panic yet. He wasn’t safe out in the open like this in a body he didn’t recognize, especially not in Gotham. He had to get somewhere safe, where he could get help. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bruce, he had to get to Bruce, and the Manor. That was his best bet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(And Jason ignored that niggling fear, that familiar image of Batman scowling at a monitor as he once again told his team that there were “no Meta’s allowed in Gotham”. Was Jason a Meta now? If whatever had happened was permanent, would Bruce-) </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No. One emergency at a time. Bruce, dad, would help figure out what happened. Get to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>On shaking legs and with his balance thrown off by the added limbs, Jason pulled himself up on his feet. This shakiness seemed like more than just sore muscles. His blood sugar and hydration were probably low as well. The claws in his fingers extended automatically to grip at the stone beside him, holding him upright while he adjusted. His muscles ached but held, his senses swimming. (Did his hearing and sense of smell actually seem sharper all the sudden? His vision certainly seemed ever so slightly off, certain colors seemed duller than he remembered, and tiny movements were more eye catching-) No. Focus on one thing at a time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Successful standing, that was good. He took a careful step forward, mindful of his balance, and managed to move away from the wall and still keep upright, even better. Assured momentarily that he could at least manage this on his own, Jason continued forward, wings tucked in close to his body and tail flicking back and forth unconsciously in what seemed to be an ingrained attempt at assisting balance. Jason wasn’t going to question it at the moment, just add it to the “figure it out later” pile. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jason had almost reached the main street when all the sudden his senses all simultaneously flooded with alarm. There was a thud of heavy footsteps followed by something dragging on cement, a deep growl reverberating through the air, and a wave of a pungent, almost rotten scent. Less than a second later the source of the alarm rounded the corner, and it took all Jason had to not scream.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The creature, whatever it was, was vaguely human. It rounded the corner on all fours but when it paused to stare at him it lifted its front legs into a slumped standing pose. It had large, wicked looking wings and a thick, powerful looking tail. It’s entire body was covered in forest green scales. The “arms” and “legs” were proportionate for a human, its head roughly the same shape, though the neck seemed ever so slightly too long and the ears were stretched up into points at the tips. Beneath stretched lips, the teeth looked unnaturally sharpened and stained. Slitted eyes with a too-large, dark iris and yellow-tinted sclera studied Jason with a predatory gleam that had him freezing in place and reaching a hand automatically towards his belt (which was gone, damn it, it must have been destroyed in the chrysalis).</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>With the corners of its mouth pulled upward into an unnaturally wide grin, the creature dropped it’s jaw, parted its teeth, and it </span>
  <em>
    <span>screamed</span>
  </em>
  <span>. An ear shattering, shrill sound that was the only warning Jason had before the thing lunged for him, teeth first.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Jason startled at the sudden attack, flinching backwards only to almost trip and fall as the unexpected limbs dragged him back and tripped him up. With how fast the damn creature was, the stumbling might have been what saved him from the inch long claws that swiped for his throat. The next slash towards his chest was stopped by one of Jason’s arms that he managed to pull up into a block just in time. The impact of the hard scales against his arm stung as if the creature was wearing Kevlar.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Forced into retreating, Jason weathered the blows as well as he could, mostly dodging and blocking, trying to find an opening between the claws and teeth and occasional swipe from a clawed wing or tail. The latter managed to almost slip past him, slicing a shallow cut into his arm that Jason hardly felt through the adrenaline and instinctual fear as his senses clouded over with the rotten stench the creature seemed to reek. Jason had never felt so cornered during a fight in his </span>
  <em>
    <span>life</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It took until Jason felt the tip of his lashing tail brush the back wall of the alley. Jason saw the sudden, tiny opening in the creature’s furiously attacking limbs and lashed out half on instinct, his comparatively smaller claws extended as far as they would go to slice down the side of the creature’s face and cheek. To Jason’s utter surprise, his claws actually managed to get through the scales, leaving noticeable furrows in their wake. The creature </span>
  <em>
    <span>yelped</span>
  </em>
  <span> at the blow, suddenly drawing back to study him contemplatively with it’s slitted eyes. Apparently it hadn’t been prepared for him to be able to land any sort of return attack.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The two both paused for a moment, eyeing each other cautiously and breathing heavily. Underneath the layer of adrenaline, Jason knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep up this level of ferocity for long. His body was already close to collapse as it was. He had to end this quickly, had to scare the creature off somehow now that it seemed unsure of itself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So, once again, Jason gave in to that niggling instinct that seemed to have rooted itself in the back of his brain. Finger’s half curled and arms held at the ready, Jason let his wings unfurl as wide as they could in the confined space and he </span>
  <em>
    <span>hissed</span>
  </em>
  <span> at the creature in a way that his vocal cords by all means shouldn’t have been capable of. With every fiber of his being, he did his best to project power and hostility, trying to convince the aggressor that he wasn’t worth the fight.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The creature stumbled backwards a bit at the display, wings twitching in towards its body, head pulling backwards, tail curling. For a moment Jason almost thought he had done it, but then suddenly the creature’s wings were flaring out as well as the creature hissed in return, tail swinging up so the spikes hovered threateningly over it’s back as it crouched between Jason and his only escape route. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Internally, Jason fought to not flinch back, cursing at the creature’s persistence. He twitched his wings out again, preparing for round two of the fight as the creature appeared to do the same. But all the sudden, without warning, there was a scrape of concrete from somewhere behind and above Jason (on the roof, he deduced quickly). The creature's head snapped upwards to spot the cause of the sound, Jason about to do the same, but it was unnecessary as the new arrival showed themselves. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>With a loud, rather uneven thumping of displaced air and a blur of garnet scales, another humanoid dropped down to the sidewalk just in front of Jason. Before Jason could even start to process how he should react to this development, the small human (male, fair skin, slightly overlong dark hair) stood with his back to Jason and flared out his overlarge, scaled wings and hissed at the creature similarly to how Jason had done moments earlier. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A quick look over, even from behind the new person, was enough to tell Jason that whoever this kid was, he had little to no actual combat experience. He was running on instinct. However, the attempted stance and aggressive tint to the scent that seemed to come from him (much nicer than the one the humanoid creature had, almost familiar and calming in a weird way Jason couldn’t fully explain) was convincing enough. From behind the kid, Jason repeated his own threat again, snarling at the creature one last time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Finally the thing seemed to properly falter, the overwhelming angry tint to its scent fading a bit as it took in the fact that Jason was now not alone. Its head swung back and forth for a moment, studying the two boys, before it took one hesitant step backwards, then another. After there was a few feet of distance between them, the creature straight up turned tail and </span>
  <em>
    <span>sprinted</span>
  </em>
  <span> away on all fours, tail lashing around as it did so in a way that forced the small boy to stumble back, almost knocking into Jason as his garnet wings flared to correct his balance.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As the heavy, hurried footsteps faded, there was a second of tense silence as neither of the two boys was fully willing to drop their guard. After a moment, Jason’s eyes slid instead to further study the tiny boy (he had to be under five feet) who had appeared from out of nowhere. As such, Jason was witness to the way that the aggression suddenly dropped out of the kids stance and scent all at once like his strings had been cut, wings pulling in and scent mellowing into something much more fragile, almost nervous or hesitant. Jason wasn’t entirely sure. This whole “people having scents” thing was kind of new after all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The boy edged away from Jason slightly, body seeming to fold in on himself in a way that made him seem even smaller. Jason immediately came to the conclusion that the kid was as harmless as they came, claws and wings and tail spikes aside. He had obviously somehow gotten caught up in the same alien BS that Jason had, though exactly why he had been in the area was yet to be seen. Jason opted for the straightforward approach.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey, kid. Are you alright?” Jason asked. The kid whirled around in surprise, as if he hadn’t expected Jason to talk to him at all. Wide, startlingly blue eyes stared up at Jason in mild shock, garnet wings that were almost hilariously large for such a small body flaring out behind the kid as he overbalanced. He quickly recovered the fumble and returned to his incredibly tense, shrink-until-he-becomes-invisible approach. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hi,” he offered shyly. Jason immediately vowed to do what he could to put the kid at ease. He seemed as way too scared of Jason.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thanks for the help with that thing,” Jason offered. “I don’t know if I could have scared it off on my own. I’m Jason, by the way,” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Jason,” the kid echoed under his breath, still looking entirely too surprised at being noticed. The two boys stared at each other mutely for a brief moment, Jason waiting in hope that the small boy would give his own name in return while the kid seemed to go through some sort of mental reboot. Jason figured the kid </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> had a rather rough morning so far (because to be honest Jason was still processing all of this craziness himself, and he was Robin!) so he let the boy have a moment.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Um, well, I should just, uh, get going now,” the kid said suddenly, shifting awkwardly like he was about to bolt for it. Jason jolted in surprise at the statement, instantly moving to block the exit. The kid flinched away from Jason hard at the sudden movement. The older boy once again made a conscious effort to project that he meant no harm, not wanting to scare this small, alarmingly alone child who was already making an effort to run off alone into Gotham mid-alien craziness.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You can’t just head off on your own, what if another one of those creatures shows up? As much as I appreciated the backup just now, there’s no way you could actually deal with one on your own,” Jason tried to reason gently.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can take care of myself,” the boy muttered mulishly, apparently unwilling to give in despite how he was currently trying to make himself look as small as possible under Jason’s glare. Stubborn kid, Jason could relate. Tilting his head slightly, Jason switched tactics.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Look, kid-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tim,” the small boy mumbled. “Tim Drake,” and huh, that name was actually familiar. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Wasn’t there a husband and wife at one of the recent Gala’s Jason had been forced to attend with the last name Drake? By the remains of the fancy-branded clothes Tim was wearing, Jason figured that chances were that this was their son. Which begs the question of what a rich kid was doing seemingly unsupervised in the bad part of Gotham in the middle of the night (now late morning).</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay, Tim,” Jason corrected. “You obviously got caught up in the same weird alien whatsit that I did, and by the looks of things you were out here by yourself.” Jason waits for the hesitant nod before he continues. “Well, it’s not like I can just leave you here on your own, </span>
  <em>
    <span>especially</span>
  </em>
  <span> not with whatever the hell those mutant creatures are running around. I mean you’re like what, ten?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not ten!” Tim snapped suddenly in indignation that seemed to overpower the nerves. “I’m twelve and three-quarters!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Twelve and three-quarters. Oh my god, this kid was absolutely adorable. Jason was feeling an incredibly Dick-like urge to squeeze this kid into mush. But he was obviously skittish, so Jason held himself back for now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Alright, twelve and three-quarters, sorry. But that’s still way too young to be out here on your own in this situation, no matter how good you are at taking care of yourself.” Jason paused, pretending to think the problem over as if he hadn’t already been planning on taking the kid with him as soon as he saw how small he was. “Do you have someone we could try to contact to help you?” he finally asked, if only just to confirm his suspicions. The way Tim shifted somewhat nervously and didn’t offer up any options was enough information for Jason.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How about you just come with me, then? I’m thinking our best bet is to get across the city to where my dad is. We’ll be safer together, and from there we can probably figure out how to get in contact with someone you know.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tim’s head snapped up at that, blue eyes widening with surprise. “You’re taking me to the Batcave?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Shocked silence fell between the two boys as Tim blinked, processing his sudden slip as Jason tried to reconcile what had just happened.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What did you just say?” Jason asked, somewhat sharper than he intended. How had the kid managed to figure that out? What remained of Jason’s uniform was inconspicuous enough that it should have just looked like exercise gear, especially with the mask and vest gone. He had been careful not to give anything away thus far. How had Tim </span>
  <em>
    <span>known</span>
  </em>
  <span>? The kid in question went bright red at the questioning, wings and shoulders hunching in even tighter as he stated nervously rambling in response.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I… I, um. I know. That you’re Robin and Bruce is Batman and Dick is Nightwing. You see, uh, I saw one of the Flying Graysons' performances once when I was small, and then Dick’s parents died, and then Robin showed up and he was able to do a quadruple flip, and that was the Graysons’ signature move. Which meant that Robin was Dick, and his guardian Bruce must have been Batman. And the more I looked the more sense it made. I started… um… taking pictures of vigilantes at night. That’s what I was doing last night, technically. My camera got destroyed in the- whatever that was. But I started following them a few years ago, and then when Robin left and Nightwing showed up and Bruce adopted a new kid- you- a few months before a new Robin showed, and I realized that </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>must be the new Robin, and I just- sorry,” he trailed off, looking for all the world like he was hoping the ground would swallow him up on the spot.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And- </span>
  <em>
    <span>oh</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Jason thought. Oh, this kid wasn’t just small and shy and lonely, he was a little genius. He had managed to figure it out on his own years ago, and had been following them around at night for years. There was no way in hell that Jason was leaving him here. Bruce was going to absolutely love a little detective like him (ignoring the situation, the fact that once he realized what had happened to Jason Bruce might-)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>First things first, he had to keep the kid from freaking out on him even more. Something about how small and innocent and vulnerable he was tugged at Jason’s chest, urging him to protect this small genius of a child. A part of Jason wondered at how suddenly he had grown attached to Tim, if it could have something to do with all the weird instincts that seemed to have rooted in his brain. Was it because they were both weird not-humans, some sort of pack bonding thing? Jason decided quickly that he didn’t really care either way.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey, it’s alright, I’m not mad at you. I’m hella impressed, really,” Jason assured, tucking his wings in non-threateningly and holding out a calming hand towards the smaller boy. Tim stared at his palm for a moment unsurely before reaching out one of his own small hands to lightly grip it. The warmth from the contact soothed that worried part of Jason’s brain. Taking care of Tim just slotted into Jason’s head as </span>
  <em>
    <span>right</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and from the minute relaxing of tense muscles and easing of nervous scent, Tim seemed to be similarly soothed by the contact.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You aren’t mad?” Tim checked again, like he was expecting to be told otherwise. Jason’s chest twinged.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Heck yeah, Timmy. You must be wicked smart to have figured out our identities like that. Do you know how many full grown adults have tried and failed to work it out? Even Dickiebird and I were told one way or the other, but you got it all on your own. Bruce is probably going to love you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Really?” Tim questioned, a bit more hopeful this time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh yeah, absolutely. You’ve probably noticed by now that he has a tendency to emotionally and or legally adopt kids everywhere he goes. With a brain like that he’ll probably take to you right away. And Alfred and Dick, if he’s managed to get into the city by now, seem to like having kids around too. You can totally come and hang out at the Manor while we figure all of this craziness out. So, what do you say, some with me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tim’s eyebrows scrunched slightly, eyes ever so slightly distant as he apparently tried to analyze Jason’s words for some sort of lie or trap. Geezus, what had happened to the kid that had made him so hesitant to believe that someone genuinely wanted to help him? Jason really wanted to do some more digging into Tim’s home life with all of the neglect signals the kid was giving off. But not now, not when the trust that Jason had managed to build was still so fragile.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Okay,” Tim said finally, small hand tightening ever so slightly in Jason’s like he was still expecting to be reprehended for the contact, “I can go with you to the Manor, if you really want me to.” Jason just grinned down at him, squeezing in response as he mentally cheered at his success. The small companion has been obtained.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Alright then, Timmy! Now that that’s settled, and all the weird, aggressive creatures seem to have abandoned the area, let’s get going shall we?” Not waiting for a verbal response, Jason stepped toward the main street, tugging Tim gently after him. Still slightly dazed at how things turned out, Tim followed compliantly, and the two boys started their journey towards safety.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hmm, what do you guys think of this one? I have enough ideas for where this goes that it could easily become a series, if some people are interested.</p>
<p>Anyways, I have a couple days off from posting next, and them I'm back on the 18th! Until then :)</p>
<p>Edit: Wow, you all really liked this one! To anyone who checks back or comes across this fic later, I went ahead and officially made this part 1 of the new series, so keep an eye out there for the eventual continuation!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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